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Just wanted to share that my first book is out: When the Stars Are Right: H. P. Lovecraft and Astronomy. Although it's a work of nonfiction, it looks at the history of both the space opera genre, and the wider scientific concepts inherent in space opera, from the late 19th and early 20th century through the lens of the life and work of H. P. Lovecraft. I co-wrote this with an astronomer who is also a Lovecraft fan, and this includes some original details on Lovecraft's interest in astronomy and his time as a kid hanging out at Providence's Ladd Observatory I dug out of the Brown University library archives that have never been seen before. Obviously Lovecraft is typically viewed as a horror author, but we wanted to specifically look at him as both a nonfiction science author, and as a science fiction author. Among other things the book covers early UFOs, ancient aliens, evolving notions of life on Venus and Mars, evolving concepts of how the solar system was formed, and the development of early rocket technology, and how Lovecraft both viewed and in some cases helped shape those ideas, including some original takes on the Lovecraftian influences of Robert Heinlein and Wernher von Braun. Hopefully some people might find it of interest, and while I know it might be a lot to ask people to buy, if you can request your local library to buy a copy, I would appreciate it!
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Aug 1, 2023 19:32
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Runcible Cat posted:Any plans for an e-edition? It looks fascinating, but it'll basically cost me double to get a copy over to the UK... This is unfortunately beyond my control, but I'm guessing it will be like other Hippocampus books in that it will eventually be available on Amazon as both physical and Kindle editions. My contract did include an ebook clause so I would assume it will eventually happen!
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Aug 3, 2023 18:47
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SkeletonHero posted:What are some good fictional reference books? No real plot to speak of, just world-building in guidebook/textbook format. Along the lines of Gnomes or Brian Froud's Faeries but I'm hoping for something of a darker fantasy-horror or alien theme. Something like Vermis I would work too, but I'm not sure what to even call that. Fictional strategy guide? It was mentioned above, but Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials and Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy. But especially his Expedition, if you can find it for a decent price. That for me is the go-to kind of fictional worldbuilding of an alien biome (it's not a surprise that Barlowe would later be hired to work on Avatar and a few of the aliens from Expedition wound up on Pandora). You also might like Dougal Dixon's speculative evolution guides, After Man and Man After Man (both about human evolution in the far future) and The New Dinosaurs (on if dinosaurs didn't go extinct and evolved into new forms). For more established IPs, I think the Star Wars Essential Atlas, Essential Guide to Warfare, and Propaganda books are the best possible looks at Star Wars from that sort of in-universe position.
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Aug 8, 2023 20:27
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sebmojo posted:The TSA spacecraft book If the Terran Trade Authority books, co-sign 100%
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Aug 8, 2023 23:15
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Redshirts by John Scalzi is real good. I remember it was supposed to be an FX show (I think) but that adaptation obviously stalled out. It's a shame, for obvious reasons it's one book that I think wouldn't be hurt by being adapted to TV, though probably Paramount would have to do it. I feel like Scalzi was really big in the mid-00s for a decade or so and then kind of faded away. StonecutterJoe posted:There's also the classic 80s Necronomicon which iirc is still in print, which was written by a lunatic who calls himself "Simon" (though he insists that he just did some editing and this is the real honest to goodness and totally true book straight out of Lovecraft. It's an entertaining read, though clearly written as a deliberate hoax (lots of the spells are left deliberately incomplete, so readers can't even try to recreate them) The repeated warnings that this book is so gonna curse you, for real, you're totally doomed now, are wonderfully over the top. Dan Harms and John Wisdom Gonce have a book called The Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind Lovecraft's Legend, which goes in detail on Lovecraft's inspiration for the book, its role in his fiction, and its afterlife in pop culture. It's a pretty good look at everything Necronomicon-related. They go in depth on the Simon hoax.
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Aug 10, 2023 01:12
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P. Djéli Clark was one of my professors when I was in grad school, and we also lived in the same neighborhood for a couple years so I'd often run into him walking his dogs and we'd chat for a bit. The funny thing is at the time I had no idea he was a fiction author (I think he might have had just one or two short stories published at the time) but we still talked a lot of science fiction, especially Star Trek.
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Aug 27, 2023 01:28
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Arsenic Lupin posted:What does/did he teach? History of slavery. I took his class on the depiction of slavery in film and it was great. Looking up the syllabus and we watched: Birth of a Nation CSA: Confederate States of America Gone With the Wind Mandingo Manderlay Burn! Django Unchained The Last Supper Quilombo Sankofa Adanggaman 12 Years a Slave His first nonfiction book actually just came out this summer: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/jubilees-experiment/0C88ECF12CB21EB2E01B15011DB5B01A#fndtn-information
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Aug 27, 2023 01:51
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Zorak of Michigan posted:John Ringo is an author, possibly a villain, definitely not a protagonist. I saw him at a convention almost 20 years ago now and my main memory of him was being very jealous of the Star Wars EU authors who were there and how they pulled bigger crowds than he did. Also him being surprisingly careful not to curse because kids were in the audience.
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Sep 3, 2023 14:19
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theblackw0lf posted:What are some good books that deal with first alien contact? Especially ones that explore the human response in interesting ways. The Sparrow. Maybe obvious answer: Contact.
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Sep 6, 2023 01:39
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Didn't Mary Doria Russell change her religious views later in life? I wonder how that impacted, or if it was in time to impact, her metaphor for The Sparrow when she wrote the sequel (which I haven't read, but would still like to read someday).
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Sep 6, 2023 19:28
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actionjackson posted:so when it says "The blond man, whole again, unbloodied, lay at his feet." him being harmed was an illusion? perhaps from the holoprojector? weird In the Tamarian language, Darmok and Jelaad were two folk heroes who joined to kill the monster of Tanagra. Hence, "Darmok and Jelaad at Tanagra" became the metaphor for cooperation.
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Sep 9, 2023 03:16
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I always confuse Jonathan Strange with Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
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Sep 17, 2023 19:23
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Gaius Marius posted:No other thinker of that time predicted the world ending with crabs I don’t think he mentioned whether they had hit points for massive damage, though.
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Sep 18, 2023 18:38
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Definitely support reading Mote.
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Sep 21, 2023 20:36
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orange sky posted:Also, I started reading Behold Humanity, and I kept finding stuff that made me think "this could have really used a couple more rounds of editing" and "what the gently caress is happening" before realizing that apparently it's taken out of Reddit posts made over time by one dude? I’m surprised there aren’t more books like this, to be honest.
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Sep 25, 2023 12:50
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Annath posted:Visiting New England, stopped in Providence. Don’t feel too bad, even academics aren’t allowed to look at his letters in the John Hay, they’re in too bad condition. He has an astronomy notebook in there that hasn’t been digitized yet and they wouldn’t let me look at it for research for my Lovecraft and Astronomy book, and I’ve met the special collections librarian at a number of conferences prior. That being said they do typically have some of his papers on display in the hallway. Last time I was there they had his notes for At the Mountains of Madness in a display case.
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Oct 8, 2023 02:24
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Annath posted:Interesting. If even academics aren't allowed to study them, then what's the point? It isn't really preserving knowledge if no one can study it lol. Yeah, like Arsenic Lupin said, the paper quality tends to be very bad and they are extremely fragile, but thankfully almost all of them are digitized and can be viewed freely on the Brown library website. And my book is When the Stars are Right: H. P. Lovecraft and Astronomy: https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/nonfiction/when-the-stars-are-right-h.-p.-lovecraft-and-astronomy
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Oct 8, 2023 03:46
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Deptfordx posted:Looking at his bibliography and drat, you have to respect Alan Dean Fosters hustle when it comes to movie tie-ins. No, authors get residuals for novelizations. Foster himself was just at the center of a lawsuit against Disney by the Science Fiction Writers of America because they decided to just stop paying residuals to novelization authors after they bought Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox. https://www.sfwa.org/2020/11/18/disney-must-pay/ There were other authors involved as well, and from memory a number of 90s Star Wars EU authors had just stopped being paid residuals by Disney after the Lucasfilm purchase.
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Oct 15, 2023 16:40
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anilEhilated posted:I think one of the Laundry stories takes place there? I was going to say this, but I couldn't remember if it was a Laundry book or one of Kim Newman's Diogenes Club books. Though it does definitely seem like something that Newman would work with also.
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Oct 18, 2023 19:52
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Kestral posted:Sci-fi fans, any suggestions for books that prominently feature encounters with / survival in profoundly alien ecosystems? I've started watching Scavengers Reign, which I can only describe as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind meets Akira as drawn by Moebius, and I'm now craving some literary depictions of seriously weird and hostile ecosystems that aren't just set dressing to human drama, but which actually drive the story. Expedition by Wayne Barlow, though it's pretty costly. Saturn Rukh, Camelot 30K, and Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward. Probably others by him also that I'm forgetting, it's been a while since I read his works. Used to love him, though. Timemaster I think has some aspects of unique ecosystems. The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring by Larry Niven. 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke has several segments on the Jovian and Europan biospheres though they're not major parts. Lovecraft's short story "In the Walls of Eryx" set on a Venus as conceived of in 1936 might also be of interest: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/iwe.aspx EDIT: Carl Sagan co-wrote a 1976 article on the possibility of life in Jupiter's atmosphere that is available for free online, if you want something on the topic that's harder science: https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1976ApJS...32..737S This article led to the segment in Sagan's Cosmos on Jovian life and undoubtedly influenced Clarke's 2010 (and probably Forward's Saturn Rukh also), though at the same time Clarke was speculating on Jovian atmospheric life at least as early as the 2001 novel in 1968 and A Meeting with Medusa in 1971: Chairman Capone fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Nov 1, 2023 21:14
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pradmer posted:Tuf Voyaging by George RR Martin - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0092EE5HY/ This is a really fun collection. Really all of Martin’s space operas are great. Highly recommend Dying of the Light and Windhaven also.
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Nov 1, 2023 23:43
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This is probably more reflective of myself than anything else but up until the Game of Thrones show started I always thought of Martin as a primarily science fiction/space opera author who I dimly knew had also written a Lord of the Rings-type series. I think whenever I had heard A Song of Ice and Fire before 2010 I always confused it with The Wheel of Time.
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Nov 2, 2023 15:50
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Never read Book of the New Sun, but I did read Book of the Long Sun and really enjoyed it at the time. I do wonder if it would hold up if I went back to it now. I remember my girlfriend at the time getting really into my attempts to explain the plot. I do think it has a cool setting, though.
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Nov 3, 2023 02:24
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Or even if Hodgson had just survived ww1. In 1927, Lovecraft wrote a guide what what he considered the best supernatural horror stories written to date, and he has a section on Hodgson in it. It's free to read online, if anyone wants to browse it. For a nonfiction essay it's also notable for opening with one of Lovecraft's most famous passages: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx He also wrote a much shorter guide to space opera in 1935, but that sadly doesn't seem to be available online.
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Nov 9, 2023 04:36
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Yeah, there has been Sherlock Holmes fanfics for decades. Nicholas Meyers’ from the seventies are classics! I know he wrote some more recent ones, but those don’t seem to have been as well received.
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Nov 13, 2023 16:10
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thotsky posted:There's that door-loving book. Definitely second the Neverwhere audiobook. Or I guess technically the audio drama with James McAvoy.
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Nov 14, 2023 16:17
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Runcible Cat posted:It was the only one that worked. There would be a certain incongruous humour in Holmes whipping out his pocket Necronomicon and revealing his thorough knowledge of the Mythos, sure, but that just does not work with his character and history, and none of the other authors seemed to get that. Gaiman's story does, perfectly. There really should be more good Lovecraftian Holmes pastiches, especially since Lovecraft was a big fan of Sherlock Holmes and even started a "Providence Detective Agency" when he was thirteen with a couple of his friends from the neighborhood. I just remembered there's All-Consuming Fire, which crosses over both Holmes and Lovecraft with Doctor Who.
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Nov 15, 2023 23:23
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fritz posted:I think "Scream for Jeeves" had Holmes show up in one of the stories, but it's been a long time since I read it. And that just reminds me of the Jeeves/Lovecraft crossover that Alan Moore wrote for one of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes. Looking it up, "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss!" from LOEG: Black Dossier.
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Nov 15, 2023 23:50
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cptn_dr posted:I found it kind of grating, but I don't know if I've ever read anything described as "Dark Academia" without finding it grating, so I'm willing to admit that's possibly just a Me Problem. As a college professor it is really funny to see what the general public thinks of academic life when the reality is anything but. I have a friend who is a VAP at Yale and even that is not anything like the dark brooding Gothic experience that I'm guessing most people just assume it is because of Hogwarts. Obviously no one would be interested in a real take on academia (with a chapter on the two-hour faculty senate meeting where the heroes spend half their time debating how to respond to the vice president for advancement's new proposal for a three-year plan on high-impact practice adoption) but I do wonder how university life in general developed such a widespread perception that's so off base. I guess it's a liberal inversion of the conservative view of academia as basically being a Maoist struggle session with blue-haired gender-neutral commissars.
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Nov 16, 2023 01:49
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"#Heinlein dad" is just funny considering that not only did Heinlein not have kids, it was a huge sore spot for him and John W. Campbell regularly mocked him about his lack of children proving that he didn't have any real connection to society and it was at least one of the things that drove Heinlein into being a total rear end in a top hat later in life (far from the only thing, though). I think I've mentioned it here before, but highly recommend Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlen, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee if you're interested in the Golden Age authors and their personal lives (and fights with each other).
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Nov 21, 2023 18:57
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bovis posted:There's this new Humble Bundle with a load of John Scalzi books in it I like Old Man's War and Redshirts. I think I also read the second OMW book, and heard Lockdown was also a good take on the zombie genre. But I've also heard that his later work declines, but haven't read any of it.
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Nov 24, 2023 00:19
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AARD VARKMAN posted:I read "Hench" the superhero villain book and while I liked the concept a lot it was very very... millennial? Is the henchman a yellow, overall-wearing cyclops?
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Nov 27, 2023 20:08
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Is The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet good? The Graveyard Book and Ocean at the End of the Lane are probably the last things Gaiman has made that I really liked. I think I've brought it up here before but my personal conspiracy theory is that the latter is based on his daughter not liking Amanda loving Palmer.
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Nov 28, 2023 01:05
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I don't know if I would really call Last of the Wine sci-fi or fantasy given that it's a historical epic with no fantasy or sci-fi elements, but it's an excellent novel and I highly recommend it.
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Dec 13, 2023 02:15
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General Battuta posted:Read some Matthew Stover star wars books I was going to say that Traitor is basically just two people discussing the morality of the Force for 200 pages, but then I remembered I was forgetting the Ganner segment!
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Dec 14, 2023 05:46
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FPyat posted:The full World War Z audiobook is an incredible experience. It’s been a long time since I last thought the dumber ideas Max Brooks has are a mark against the book’s value. Yeah, definitely recommend the WWZ audio book. That’s an impressive cast. A friend and I listened to it on a road trip across the US Southwest a few years ago, it made the miles go by. Though the least believable thing about the book was the idea the Israeli government would either defy settlers or protect Palestinians in an existential crisis.
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Dec 23, 2023 13:10
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Major Ryan posted:Station Eleven / The Ghost Hotel / Sea of Tranquility - I'd not even heard of Emily St. John Mandel and was recommended by someone I volunteer with who, to the best of my knowledge, isn't really much of a sci-fi fan. All just very well written, each gripped me very quickly. You should watch the Station Eleven miniseries. It's not a 100% direct adaptation of the book (a big part of it is almost like a "what if?" alternate take on the novel) but consensus from people who have seen/read both seems to be it's the better version of the story. There was an official podcast that went along with the show and one episode had Emily St. John Mandel talking with the showrunner about the differences between the novel and show. For what it's worth, the show aired late 2021/early 2022 and it was easily my favorite piece of TV from both years. Can't praise it highly enough.
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Dec 31, 2023 19:04
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StrixNebulosa posted:Books with furry protagonists that I know of: I'll also add City by Clifford Simak (intelligent dogs in a utopian post-apocalyptic setting)
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Jan 3, 2024 17:32
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Poldarn posted:There was a Star Wars novel that used "dopplering" as a verb and I was like "Hey doesn't this take place in the past?" One of the 80s Lando novels by insane libertarian L. Neil Smith described something as looking like a Portuguese man-o'-war.
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Jan 4, 2024 16:50
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For gay male SFF, Mark Gatiss (yes, of Sherlock and other TV fame) has a trilogy of spy novels (Vesuvius Club, Devil in Amber, Black Butterfly) that are softly steampunk/magical/spy-fi. The main character is a bisexual Edwardian male spy who has sex with both men and women. Also not quite what's asked for but I'll also mention Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White, a sort of post-apocalyptic cult novel whose main character is a trans man who has sex with a cis male.
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Jan 6, 2024 22:13
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